


A Developing Story

by Linorien



Series: 007 Fest 2017 [5]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, ghost story, remember how a year ago I gave Q a sister, she forced her way into the story, well she is back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 02:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11431026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linorien/pseuds/Linorien
Summary: It seemed like a routine mission, but from the very beginning, something seemed off. It just wasn't for a reason they would've suspected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: ghosts, just, ghosts they could be ghost hunters, one of them could be a ghost, they could be haunted or helped by a ghost while on a mission I really don't care if its a cannon fic or completely AU just give me some ghost stories

 [](http://imgur.com/qMIEuPC)

Christie Hepburn was not a timid person. She was a double-oh agent for crying out loud! So why was it that her palms were sweating as she approached this house?

She wasn’t particularly worried about the mission, she was staking out the base of a smuggling ring while they were all gone. She had done that many times before.

She wasn’t particularly worried about the marks, their MO was hand to hand combat, something she excelled at. And if she caught them off guard, she would be far above their level of competence.

She wasn’t particularly worried about—

“009?” Q’s voice interrupted over her earpiece. “Is something wrong?”

Damn. She had forgotten about the contact lenses she wore. Everything she saw was transmitted back to headquarters. “Nothing,” she said, voice steady. “Just looking around. Heading in now.”

“Okay. I’ll be here if you need anything.”

Agent Hepburn took a deep breath and went in the back door of the manor. Despite her best efforts, the door creaked and the sound echoed throughout the house, bouncing off the stone floors. She shut the door behind her and walked forward.

The home was an old estate and as such, she had entered into a large kitchen. A large fireplace dominated the wall to her right and many pots and pans hung from the walls on the left. A stove and a microwave had been added, but nothing else seemed updated since the 1800s. She moved on.

The next room may have been a study, judging by the books on the shelves. Candles backed by mirrors had clearly been the main source of lighting. She was sure the dark wallpaper had not helped to brighten the room. The winding design made her head hurt to try to follow it, so she left.

The main sitting room showed actual signs of habitation. Coffee mugs dotted the tables and sleeping bags were pushed up against the walls. A trashcan in the corner was full of beer bottles and pizza boxes. She thought she caught a whiff of chicken stew, but that didn’t make sense.

009 rooted around, trying to find clues about the members of the smuggling ring. There were receipts, but they paid in cash. There might be fingerprints, but those would have to wait.

Moving upstairs, she felt like the air had thinned slightly. The hallways seemed to be closing in on her, but she figured old houses probably just had smaller hallways upstairs for some architectural reason. Trailing her fingers along the peeling wallpaper, she began rooted around in the upstairs rooms. There were two toilets, another room that may have been a cleaning closet, and about ten different bedrooms, one of which was the room where all of the smuggler’s “goods” were kept. She heard a low whistle from Q.

“Quite a collection,” she agreed. And it really was. The shelves around the room had been cleared off and replaced with an assortment of stolen items. For a band of smugglers, they were unexpectedly organised.

The top two shelves to the immediate right of the door was all jewelry. Big pendant necklaces and small silver wedding rings that were clearly stolen from local ponds, judging by the rust. The lower shelves were a collection of boxes. 009 opened enough to conclude that they were all drugs.

The left side of the room had artwork leaning against the wall, she paid them no mind. She had eyes for the old guns and knives on the back shelf.

 [](http://imgur.com/iYcVhHd)

Q watched from his monitor in Q branch while the agent looked around. The mission seemed unexpectedly easy. The smugglers had been seen leaving in a hurry yesterday; they weren’t sure why. But 009 had already been on her flight to the Czech Republic and they saw no reason to abort. It would actually be easier without anyone in the hideout. No one to surprise them.

Q thought he caught a reflection of another person as 009 held up a knife.

“I think there might be someone behind you,” he warned her.

She whirled around, knife raised, but she didn’t see anyone. Neither did Q.

“Could’ve sworn I saw someone, clearly not. Sorry.”

“I was studying the hilt, so I didn’t see it. Keep letting me know though. Two eyes are better than one.”

It wasn’t until the agent picked up an antique camera in another room that things really got weird.

[ ](http://imgur.com/iYcVhHd)

Agent Hepburn wasn’t a huge fan of cameras, but even she knew how to appreciate this antique. Q reliably informed her that this looked like one of the first kodak cameras that took traditional film. It was in surprisingly good condition.

“Not that I am supporting stealing,” Q said slowly. “But if you happened to bring that back to my branch, I wouldn’t scold you.”

The agent laughed. “My, my, aren’t you the closet criminal. Although I suppose if we take it, we are preventing the smugglers from turning a profit.”

She grabbed the camera and jogged down the stairs to set it in the kitchen. The upstairs made her jumpy and she was glad to leave. The stairs creaked but as no one was around, she wasn’t worried about being loud. Instead she jumped the last two stairs and nearly ran into the old coat rack at the bottom. She hadn’t remembered it on her way up. Dodging around it, she walked to the kitchen.

“I can leave this in here and then look around more for clues about this group,” she told Q as she walked. “I don’t trust their absence. Unless the group is really small or really cocky, there is always at least one person left with the goods.”

“Or at the very least, there are traps,” Q added. “But we haven't found any of those.”

“Exactly.” She laid the camera down carefully. “Something made them—” The words halted in her mouth as she heard the front door slam. She drew her gun and crept to the hall.

It was empty. She listened closely, but there were no sounds of steps, or even breathing besides her own.

“What it is?” Q asked quietly.

“I thought I heard the front door slam. But no one is here.” She walked to the window and looked out, but couldn’t see anyone outside either. “Any eyes outside, Q?”

“I’m afraid not. Poor satellite coverage here and FBI is using one of mine for a high priority mission.”

“Did you owe them?” she asked as she walked back to the main living room. As the bedroom for most of the gang, she knew her best clues were to be found in there.

“They owe me now.”

Much to their surprise, the candles were lit. The flames gave off far less light than they ought to, and though they both assumed it was their imagination, the room seemed more dark than it was before. Agent Hepburn threw open the curtains on the closest window and immediately marched to the next. It was only because Q was watching the feed so closely that he noticed what she did not.

“Look out the window,” he ordered.

She opened the second set of curtains and looked out. It was dark. Shadows of spindly tree branches swayed in the wind. Only the ambient light from outside gave any form to the surroundings. She looked down at her watch. 13:49.

“Q?”

He said nothing. She darted back to the window by the door. It was sunny, leaves covered the trees, and not a breath of wind disturbed the peace.

She stood in the doorway of the living room, where she could see both windows. Light and dark. Day and night. “You’re seeing this too, right?”

“I’m struggling to believe it as much as you are.” She could faintly hear him typing. “I went back on the recording and earlier there was clearly sunlight peeking through the bottom of the drapes.”

“Proceed with caution then?”

“I don’t know what to tell you to be cautious of, but yes.”

009 walked back to one of the windows and felt along the edge. Perhaps there was a film over the window, connected to a wire, that showed a different view. But she found nothing. She would check the outside when she finished in here. However the house was surrounded by a large plain and she would rather not be so exposed.

A flutter of papers behind her made her turn. The candle on the desk burned a little brighter when she looked at it. She came closer. The papers didn’t seem to be anything of importance. Just some old notes on rotational crops.

But after a closer inspection, a switch at the bottom of a desk drawer triggered a shelf to slide back and reveal a hidden room. Two things were immediately clear. First, the smugglers never found this room. There was a collection of old photographs in silver frames that had not been touched.

Secondly, this had been used as a dark room. The candles had red glass around them, there were no windows, and there were jars of different acids labeled for their purpose. Knowing she would find nothing here of use to the case, she turned to leave.

A sharp gasp from Q brought her up short. “What?”

“What do you mean, what?” he asked. “Who is that woman?”

“What woman?” 009 turned her head, but couldn’t see anyone. “Are you sure you didn’t just see me reflected in one of the mirrors in the living room?”

“You really don’t see her? She’s standing right in front of you.” He began typing furiously. “Maybe someone is interfering with my camera feed. I don’t know why they would, or why they would make a woman appear, but I am not happy.”

She smiled at the quartermaster’s prickly tone. He hated when things worked anything less than perfect. She walked out of the room. But as she passed through the doorway, she felt an icy chill run down her back. It was like walking through a waterfall. She looked behind her.

“Any chance you believe in ghosts, Q?”

His fingers paused. “Absolutely not.” He looked back at the live feed. “Oh.”

The candles in the darkroom were lit. He knew 009 had not done it. The woman was standing in front of the shallow basin.

“Is she there, Q?”

“Yes.”

“Describe her to me.”

Q took a deep breath. “To start, she looks alive. Not transparent at all. She has on an old gown, blue and white stripes, probably made it herself. Hair is curly, left down. The top of her head is even with your chin, I’d guess.”

“Even shorter than me?”

“Well if she is from the 19th century as her clothing indicates, the average height was about eleven centimetres less than it is today.”

“What is she doing now?”

“Trying to reach the bottles on the shelf.”

Agent Hepburn immediately lifted them down for her. The lids unscrewed and were lifted, then set down again.

“She seems sad,” Q said. “Are they empty?”

009 repeated the question and gently took the bottle from the ghost. “Yes.”

The air temperature in the room dropped two degrees. “I don't think she is pleased.”

“No. Hang on she's trying to say something. Do you hear anything?”

“Only a low hum.”

“Okay, my lip reading software is running now. Ask her to repeat that.”

The software worked. “She is saying she needs to get more. Ask her why.”

And thus began a strange three way conversation with 009 asking the questions, the ghost answering, and Q relaying the answers provided by his software. He was oddly grateful he had tested it on his sister rambling about photography or else many of the terms she used would not have been picked up as cleanly.

The gist of it was this: she desperately needed to develop pictures. The ones left on the camera they had found. She scared out the smugglers when they awoke her spirit and used her camera. She didn’t know where they were, but she was originally from York. Hence the English.

Unfortunately, there was nothing more 009 could find that might lead them to the smuggler’s current hideaway. Maybe they would return to this place someday, but based on what the ghost was telling them, Q doubted it would be for a few days.

He told the MI6 outpost in Berlin to set a watch on the house and booked Agent Hepburn a flight home.


	2. Chapter 2

There are certain things one does not learn as an agent in training. Typically one does not learn how to build a bridge. Or how to make the perfect tea (though Q might wish otherwise). And one, certainly, does not learn the horrors of travelling on a plane with a ghost.

The ghost -Mary- had seen a plane before, sure. But she had never been in one. The airport was crowded with many more people than she had ever seen and 009 could feel a chill on her hand, as if the ghost was seeking comfort.

Once they were in flight, Mary took one look out the window and decided that this was terrible. The temperature in the plane dropped and the systems were fighting to maintain the programmed temperature. Flight attendants were reassuring passengers that although this was not normal, the flight was not in any danger. Blankets could be found under their seats.

When they were over the channel, Mary looked out again and could only see water. The navigation controls went down. The passengers were not told. Although worried, the pilots had plenty of experience between them and landed the craft safely back at Heathrow.

Q had picked the flight that would get the agent back to headquarters in the middle of the night shift. It wasn’t so unusual for him to wait around for an agent to get back. He had gone out for dinner with a few of his minions who were getting off shift and returned to the basement shortly before the women arrived.

The quartermaster directed them both to a small lab where he had set up some equipment for recording the ghost. 009 set the camera on the counter.

“You don’t need to stay, Agent,” Q said as he opened up his laptop. “You should rest.”

“I’d like to see this through.”

Q nodded. “Mary? If you are here, would you mind standing on that side of the room so my own camera can see you? That would allow us to see you.”

They watched on the monitor as she walked into frame and looked back at them.

“Excellent. We can see you.”

She smiled slightly. She still appeared shaken up by the modern travel. _The film?_ she asked.

“Yes. Unfortunately I don’t have what I need yet, but it will be here tomorrow along with someone who can develop it better than I can. I wouldn’t want to ruin whatever pictures you have. Would you be alright staying here? I don't really want you near my other computers.”

“He's really protective of them,” 009 added. “Treats them like his children.”

Mary nodded. _I'll be fine._

 [](http://imgur.com/iYcVhHd)

“Alright now that I am here with all the supplies, I want a better explanation, Q.”

He had only just met her at the security checkpoint, and yet Q was already regretting asking his sister for help. However, he needed someone who could develop traditional film and she was a professional photographer. He knew she had the skills. Better yet, she had the security clearance.

“It’s better if you just see for yourself.” He hit the button in the lift for Q branch.

Kendall groaned. “You are the worst.”

“Really I’m not, but I know there is no persuading you otherwise.” The doors opened. “Come on.” Q lead her through the labyrinth of labs in his branch. It had grown some since she had last been here. More old things had been sent to an off site storage facility, dusty rooms had been unburied and cleaned of rubble left over from experiments gone wrong. And some of the larger rooms had simply been partitioned since the size of a computer was significantly smaller than when this space was first built.

It all lead to a more efficient branch that Q was proud to call his own. The only thing he lacked, apparently, was someone besides his sister who could develop film. He thought for sure one of his chemists might know, but they only knew how to find the right mixtures needed, not the process.

Kendall waved to a few of the minions she recognised from the other times she had been by. When they came to the lab, they could faintly hear a voice inside. Q looked at his sister once more, realised there really was no turning back now, and pushed open the door.

As expected, 009 was inside. “Agent Hepburn, this is Kendall Wisher, our photography expert. Kendall, this is Agent Hepburn.” They shook hands and exchanged brief greetings.

“Who were you talking to?”

009 glanced at Q.

“She’s going to have to know,” he said.

“I was talking with Mary, our new ghost. This is her camera.” She motioned to the old kodak.

Kendall’s eyes lit up. She practically apparated to the camera. “I will come back to the other part in a minute, but oh my gosh I have never seen one of these outside of a museum! Let alone in such pristine condition. Where did you find it?” She picked it up reverently. The temperature began to drop.

“Don’t worry, Mary,” Q reassured their spectral guest. “She won’t break it. If anything, she is likely to beg me to let her use it when we are done.”

Kendall turned pleading eyes on her younger brother.

“This time, your anime eyes won’t do you any good. You will have to ask its owner.” Q gestured for her to come over to his computer.

“Owner? Is that this Mary you are talking about? Are you on a skype call?”

“Yes and no. She’s a ghost.”

Kendall looked at him with both eyebrows raised, but she said nothing. When she looked at the screen, she could see for herself. To her credit, she did not freak out. She always was more inclined to enjoy tales of magic than Q. Another glance at her brother assured her that this was not a prank. “Hello, Mary.”

_Good morning, Miss Kendall._ The text appeared on the screen for them to read. _Queue tells me you can develop my film?_

“You never fixed that?” Kendall laughed, pointing at the misspelling of her brother’s name. He shrugged. It had never seemed worth it. “Yes I can develop your film.”

Mary smiled. _Thank you_.

“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t started yet. It’s been awhile since I took traditional so you may have to stop me if I start to mess up. Q, can you turn on diction?”

A simple key combo turned on the diction. Q gave it a voice setting and asked Mary to try it out.

“Hello, Q.” It was a female voice. Some comedian from Northern England who had recorded her voice for use in a satnav. It hadn’t been hard to grab the audio data.

“Excellent. Now there is a slight delay still, Mary,” Q explained. “So if you need K to stop what she is doing, the best thing would be to say ‘stop’ and then close your mouth until the computer reads it out. It starts translating when it thinks it detects the end of a sentence. And I can move the camera, but you will have to be mostly facing it for it to read your lips. Does that all make sense?”

“That makes sense,” she replied through the computer.

“Anything else you need from me, K?”

“Not right now. If I think of something should I text you?”

“That should work. If I don’t answer, send Hepburn. I’m assuming you are staying here? Okay. Enjoy your womanly bonding in the dark room then.” Q smiled, K slapped him.

“Go blow stuff up, or whatever you do all day.”

 [](http://imgur.com/iYcVhHd)

In the end, the pictures were more useful than Q had thought. There were many from Mary’s last holiday with her family to Italy. They had perished in a train crash on their way back home. Q assigned Kathryn to look into the family history and deliver the prints to Mary’s descendants.

Kendall went with Kathryn to deliver the pictures, the old kodak in her bag. Mary had told her that the camera was hers to have if the family did not want it. To her delight, they gladly took the pictures, but let her have the camera.

Q and 009 were mostly happy to see that the most recent picture was one that the smugglers had taken of their group. The camera was good enough quality that facial recognition scans worked and the gang was rounded up in two weeks. All in all, a very successful mission.

He just had to decide how to skirt the fact that they had help from a ghost.


End file.
